Koreas stage talks in bid to improve battered ties
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NORTH and South Korea yesterday held high-level talks at a North Korean border town, a small step meant to improve ties battered by a military standoff in August and decades of acrimony and bloodshed.
No major breakthrough was expected at the meeting of vice-ministerial officials in Kaesong, but analysts said that even these relatively low-level talks are meaningful because they seek to carry out previously agreed reconciliation efforts — something the rivals have often failed to do in the past.
South Korean officials want to discuss more reunions between aging family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. Analysts have said that cash-strapped North Korea might seek the South’s commitment to restart joint tours to its scenic Diamond Mountain resort, which were suspended by Seoul in 2008 following the shooting death of a South Korean tourist there by a North Korean soldier.
“There are a lot of issues to discuss between the South and North. (We) will do our best to resolve them one at a time, step by step,” said Hwang Boogi, South Korea’s vice minister of unification and the head negotiator for the talks, before leaving for Kaesong.
Expectations for yesterday’s meeting dropped last month when both sides in preparatory negotiations settled for a meeting at the vice-ministerial level. This likely ruled out discussions on more important issues.
Still, any negotiations between the rivals, which are separated by the world’s most heavily armed border, should improve on the situation in August when they both threatened war over land mine blasts that maimed two South Korean soldiers.
The standoff eased after marathon talks and a deal on efforts to reduce animosity. Those included a resumption of talks between senior officials and a new round of reunions for war-separated families, which were held in October.
Analysts said quick improvements in ties are unlikely as the rivals remain far apart on major issues, such as Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons ambitions and the broad economic sanctions the South has imposed on the North since 2010, when Seoul blamed a North Korean torpedo for a warship sinking that killed 46 South Koreans.
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